I tap my fingers against the steering wheel and resist the urge to crank up the heat. I’m tried, and I need a bit of a chill to keep me awake. Highway 391 is a decent road, but it also winds around a lot. There are a dozen frozen lakes and bridges along the way. In the dark, I definitely have to pay attention to what I’m doing to avoid going into a ditch.
As I pass by a sign for Leaf Rapids, the tiny mining town near our cabin, I feel lighter. Two hours, tops, and I’ll be home. I run my tongue over my lips as I think about what she might be doing right now. It’s late, and she may have already gone to bed by the time I get there, but sometimes she stays up. I can almost see her leaning up against a stack of pillows on the bed or maybe propped up in front of the couch near the fire, reading one of those smut books she likes. Freyja would be lying next to Lia with her nose on her paws.
I won’t have to leave her again.
I smile at the thought, turn the music off, and crack the window. I like the smell of the cold air. The sky is clear, and I look up at the constellations: Orion, the Big and Little Dippers, Draco the Dragon. Without the light pollution of cities, the stars in the sky are bright and clear. I can even see the sparkling river of celestial bodies that make up the Milky Way.
Maybe tomorrow I can take the dog out for a long hike in the woods. She loves running around and shoving her nose into every rabbit hole she comes across. When I get back, Lia will probably have something warm cooking on the stove. I’ll bring in a fresh load of firewood from the stack outside to make sure Lia’s warm enough as the night winds howl around the cabin. I’ll wrap my arm around her shoulders as we sit on the couch and watch some stupid chick flick. If I bitch about it enough, I’ll convince her to watch an action movie instead.
Fuck it. She can have the chick flick. I don’t really care.
I just want to be home with her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Completely Alone
It’s late when I arrive. I’m tired and in too much of a haze to focus on what’s around me, but my brain catalogs information anyway. The meaning just doesn’t register with me yet. The snow on the ground is fresh. There are no recent tire tracks, no footprints around the door. Everything is quiet. Cold.
Empty.
Trudging onto the porch, I tap my feet against the wall near the door to knock the snow off my boots and then open the door. It’s warmer inside but not warm. There’s no fire going in the fireplace and no sound from the back room or the television. I’m not greeted by barking or a wet nose on my face.
“Lia?”
Silence.
The kitchen is immediately to the left as I walk in. There are no dirty dishes in the sink or clean ones drying in the rack. The scent in the room is bland and sterile—no evidence of recent food preparation.
I glance back at the entryway, and the empty coat hook finally holds meaning.
Is she outside?
I walk slowly to the sliding door that leads to the back porch. There’s a clear view of the woodpile out back, but no signs of Lia or Freyja. There are no tracks in the snow going to and from the woodpile. The porch is devoid of snowy boots.
“Lia?” I call again.
Nothing.
Back in the kitchen, there is only one item left out—a sheet of notebook paper on the counter near the stove. My throat tightens as I drag my feet across the linoleum floor, and my hand shakes as I reach for the paper.
Dear Evan,
It’s been weeks since I last saw you, and more than ten days since every one of my calls went straight to voice mail. I don’t know where you are or even if you are alive. I know you’ve been lying to me. I think part of me has always known. You leave for days at a time without any real explanation, and when you return, your eyes are always dull and blank. I’ve seen that look too many times not to understand what it means.
I have no one I can confide in. Even the idea of having a friend feels strange to me now. I thought you would be enough, but when you leave, I am left alone to imagine what you might be doing. I keep wondering why I bother with school. What will I do when I complete my degree? Where would I work when we have to live in secret?
I can’t do this anymore, Evan. I love you with all my heart, but I can’t cope with this. I can’t live wondering where you are, what you are doing, or if you’re going to come back home at all. I can’t reconcile what I know you are still doing with my conscience. I can’t be okay with it.
I’m going back to Arizona. There are some job openings at the local hospital, and my mom is going to help me find my own place and get settled in.
I wanted to do this in person, but I had no idea when you’d return. I don’t even know if you’ll return. I’m sorry, Evan. I thought I could do this, but I can’t. I will always love you, but it isn’t enough.
Lia
There’s no date on the page. I have no idea how long ago it was written. Days? Weeks?
I place the paper back on the counter after I’ve read through it four times. There’s tightness in my gut, and for a moment, my mind flashes to blazing heat, the feeling of sand on my torn knees, and the grip of a rough hand around my throat. I try to swallow past it, but I can’t. I can’t even draw breath into my lungs.
Previous thoughts of food, warm beverages, and the heat of a body next to mine as I sleep dissipate. I walk absently to the bedroom at the back of the cabin and stare at the neatly made bed. I drag my fingertips over the bedspread, tracing the abstract pattern.
Her scent is long gone from the room.
I slump down to the bed and grab her pillow. It only smells like laundry detergent. Still, I hold it against my chest and bury my face in it. My body is exhausted, but my mind is racing. When I look toward the nightstand, something catches my eye.
It’s a slender, silver chain. Threaded through it is a quarter.
Aside from the lamp, it’s the only item on the nightstand. It is laid out neatly and deliberately. In my head, I can see Lia slowly taking it from her neck and displaying it there. It is the symbol of our first encounter. Seeing it there feels like a punch in the gut.
Shoving the pillow away, I push myself off the bed and stomp back into the main room. I stare at the fireplace and the handful of logs stacked neatly beside it. Grasping one of them, I clench my fingers around it and feel its weight against my palm.
“Evan, that’s not a fire. That’s a bonfire!” Lia laughed and tossed a piece of popcorn at me.
“It’s negative twenty degrees out there,” I told her. “I gotta keep you warm.”
“There are better ways to do that.” She tilted her head to one side and raised an eyebrow at me.
I looked into her eyes, smiled slightly, and pretended to contemplate.
“You need another blanket? Is that what you mean?”
More popcorn hit my chest, and I dove at her, spilling the contents of the bowl all over the floor. She giggled as I pushed her down on her back, spread her legs with one of mine, and pinned her to the floor. I rocked myself against her core.
“You looking for a little something?” I said into her ear as I pressed the tip of my cock against her opening. I nipped at her earlobe with my lips.
“That’s not a little something,” she stated.
“Sure it is,” I countered. “It’s your little buddy. He wants to play hide-and-seek.”
“He always hides in the same spot.”
“Not always.”
We quickly shed our clothing and rolled to the rug in front of the fire. With one quick thrust, I was buried inside of her. The heat from the flames warmed my skin as I held myself against her flesh and kissed down her neck. I felt her hands grabbing my ass and pulling me down against her and took my cue to start moving.
Slowly.
I kissed her softly, my tongue gliding over hers and savoring every taste of her. I let my hands roam over her body, feeling her twist and turn beneath me to produce more pressure. I knew her body so well. Every movement was natural, unhurried, safe.
; She moaned into my mouth and bucked her hips up against me. I pushed down, keeping the pressure and rotating until I felt her tighten around me and then relax. With one hand on her hip, I quickened my pace and released inside of her.
I stayed right where I was, holding her body against mine and panting against her skin. The heat from the fire was nearly painful on my skin, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to move.
“I love you, Evan,” Lia whispered. “I love you so much.”
Without thinking, I swing my arm, and the piece of wood goes flying, smashing a hole in the drywall above the couch. It’s not enough. The next piece also flies through the air. Then the next and the next. When the stack is depleted, I grab the fireplace poker and start smashing the lamps in the room.
Every move is accompanied by a scream. Every crash is cathartic.
It’s still not enough.
I drop to my knees in the middle of the wreckage and press my palms into my eyes. I try to swallow, but it’s painful. I can’t take a deep breath, and my lungs burn when I try. Instead, I breathe in staccato gasps.
Every part of me aches. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve actually managed to hurt myself in my tirade or if it’s due to exhaustion. There’s a chill in my body that seeps through to my core, and I can’t stop shivering. I grasp blindly at the couch with my fingers to try to find the blanket Lia always kept there and wrap it around my shoulders. I’m warmer at least, but my fingers feel numb.
I drop to the floor on my bad shoulder, and as much as it hurts, I don’t move. My head is pounding. When I open my eyes, I can’t focus on anything, so I keep them closed. Pressure behind my eyes threatens to burst forth, but I hold my breath and keep it in.
I’m too late. She’s gone. She’s fucking gone.
I have no idea how long I lie there, trying to breathe and trying not to think. It doesn’t work. I keep running over everything in my head, trying to figure out where I went wrong. Did I pick the wrong escape route? If I had been here a couple of days earlier, would she still be here? Should I be packing a bag and jumping on the next flight to Arizona?
When I finally open my eyes, I’m looking at the Iraqi teen leaning against the sliding glass door to the porch. His arms are crossed, and he glares at me. As I watch, he approaches and drops to the floor. He sits cross-legged in front of my face and stares at me.
“You fucked it up.”
“I was going to fix everything,” I tell him.
“No you weren’t.”
“I just…I just need to explain. Tell her I couldn’t walk away before, but now it’s different.”
He raises an eyebrow at me.
“I could call her,” I whisper. “I could tell her it’s all okay now. I’ll promise not to do it anymore.”
“You’d be lying.”
“I mean it,” I say, trying to sound convincing. “No more contracts; no more hits. I’m done.”
“For how long?” he asks. “How long before the urge to kill brings you back to Rinaldo? How long before your loyalty to him outweighs your need for her?”
I have no answer.
The kid moves forward, and I flinch. He places his palms on the floor and leans his head down until we are face to face.
“You are a killer.”
I swallow. I open my mouth, wanting to protest, but I can’t.
“I’ll…I’ll change…” I don’t believe the words even as I say them. I gasp for air and try to sit up as my body shudders.
“You don’t deserve her.”
As I hear the words and recognize the truth of them, I release all the tightness in my body. I slump against the floor again, head buried in my arms. The air around me is so heavy, it’s oppressive. I can’t move.
I don’t have any reason to move.
I knew this day would come. Part of me has always known it. When we left Chicago to escape the life I had there, my intentions were pure. I had planned to get out of the business and live a quiet life with Lia.
I should have known better, but it’s what I had wanted at the time.
It wasn’t possible to stay away from that life. It had taken six months for Rinaldo to contact me after I left Chicago, but if I was to be honest with myself, I was glad when he did. Target shooting was never quite enough for me. I craved the real shot—the real kill. I took the odd jobs, escaped Lia with some lame excuse, and flew out to wherever I needed to go to take out whoever Rinaldo had assigned. At first it was just a couple of jobs, but they became more frequent.
But now he thinks I’m dead.
How long would it be before Rinaldo figured it out? How long would it be before my own desire to return to that life interfered with my time with Lia? Would I even last a year before I went searching for information on Rinaldo’s activities with thoughts of doing what I could to help him?
I can’t blame Lia for leaving. I want to, but I can’t.
My shoulders shake, and I don’t know if I’m sweating or crying. I squeeze my eyes shut, but I know if I open them, my persistent phantom will still be there. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to look into his eyes and know he’s right.
I can’t change.
I fall to my stomach, no longer able to control my sobs as images of Lia scroll through my head. My leg is pressed against something sharp. It might even be cut, but I don’t care. I squeeze my eyes shut, but I can’t close my mind. She’s everywhere inside of me.
I see her for the first time as she walks to my cabin in Arizona. I see her through the sights of my Barrett as I take shots randomly around the local park. I see her as she wraps her arms around me, tells me it will be all right, and runs her fingers through my hair.
It’s not all right. It’s never going to be all right.
Curling into a ball, I finally lose consciousness.
I wake up, screaming.
My eyes are dry and achy as I stare into nothingness, lost in my own thoughts. I’m not sure how long I’ve lain in the middle of the living room floor, surrounded by the shambles of my outburst. I know my stomach stopped growling at me long ago. I’m not even thirsty anymore.
A thump at the door startles me, and I look up. I can see through the window a thin outline of a man on the front porch. He crouches briefly and then stands again.
Instinct kicks in, and I roll myself away from the center of the room and take cover at the end of the couch. I don’t have a weapon on me. The closest gun is in the kitchen, still inside the backpack Eddie-boy handed me on the beach.
The shadow in the window moves, and I tense. Whoever it is turns and thumps down the steps to the driveway. I push myself to my feet and race to the kitchen to retrieve the Glock from the backpack and then head to the window in the front room.
Barely pushing the curtain aside, I watch a UPS truck pull away from the cabin.
On the porch is a long, brown package. The return address is a post office box in Thompson. When I squat down to pick up the parcel and carry it inside, it’s heavy. I’m wary, to say the least, as I place the box on the kitchen table and slice open the packing tape.
As I push the top half of the box away, I see my disassembled Barrett M82 sniper rifle.
I run my finger over the sleek metal. Near the trigger, the metal is darker with no scratches from wear and tear. It’s been repaired, and I have no doubt that it will work perfectly. When I lift the barrel from the box, I discover a small piece of paper.
Finish your business and return home.
Rinaldo had not been fooled. He had known exactly what I was doing the whole time. Home meant Chicago—there is no doubt in my head about that. I don’t know if I want to scream or cry.
I do neither. I laugh instead. The sound is empty and hollow in the deserted room.
In the back of the bedroom closet, there is a small safe. From it, I remove an old flip phone and select the only number entered into it. It only rings twice.
“Evan?” I close my eyes as I hear Rinaldo’s voice. I have to swallow before I answe
r.
“Yeah.”
“You got my package.” It’s not a question.
“Yes, sir.” I want to ask him how he had known I had survived, but I don’t. He probably wouldn’t tell me anyway.
“There are a lot of changes coming,” Rinaldo says. “I’m going to need your undivided attention.”
“You have it,” I say.
“Really?”
I take a deep breath, but I can’t quite bring myself to say the words.
“Evan?”
“She’s gone,” I finally say in a harsh whisper. “Finally had enough of my shit.”
There’s a long pause on the other end of the phone.
“I’m sorry, son,” he says, “but it might be for the best.”
I can’t agree with him, so I say nothing.
“Take your time and do what you need to do,” he tells me.
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep in touch.”
The phone goes silent.
I pack a bag. The cabin looks like a tornado went through it, but I’m not cleaning it up. I doubt I will ever even return to it. As I take a last look around to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything, the quarter on its chain beckons me.
I touch the coin, tracing its edge with my finger. Slowly, I drag it across the surface of the nightstand and hold the quarter in my palm. As I grip it, I can feel the metal warm from my body heat. I remember the day I did the same thing in a far more rustic cabin in the Arizona desert. I left her behind because I had nothing to offer her but apologies.
Just like now.
“Sorry,” I whisper as I drop the quarter onto the center of the bed.
I stare at it a moment, square my shoulders, and pick up my bag. Near the front door, the duffel with my Barrett sits underneath the coatrack. I bundle up against the cold, pick up all my gear, and lock the door behind me.
The cold wind is in sharp contrast to the heat I felt when I was leaving the Arizona cabin. The same feeling of my chest being ripped apart is glaringly present, but I have no canine companion to share it with this time.
I drive off.
Passenger side empty.